


From here to eternity

by killerweasel



Category: Deadwood, Highlander - All Media Types, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:58:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerweasel/pseuds/killerweasel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the dead don't stay dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From here to eternity

Title: From here to eternity  
Fandom: Supernatural/Deadwood/Highlander  
Characters: Ellsworth, Doc Cochran  
Word Count: 1,135  
Rating: R  
Warnings/Spoilers: AU after Deadwood's _Tell Him Something Pretty_ (3x12) and Supernatural's _Pilot_ (1x1)

**From here to eternity**

Ellsworth opened his eyes with a gasp and looked around wildly. The last thing he remembered was the sound of a pistol being cocked behind his head. Then there’d been a blinding flash of pain followed by... nothing. He reached back, sliding his fingers over his skull. He’d heard of people surviving a bullet to the skull before, but never from that close. “I should be dead.” Or maybe he was dead and this was the afterlife. Except the afterlife probably wasn’t a wooden box.

A wooden box? No, this was a coffin. “Oh hell.” With all of the insanity going on in town, they must have buried him alive. He stretched both hands out to push against the lid and it barely moved. Flutters of panic raced through his body before he took a couple of deep breaths. This wasn’t any worse than being involved in a cave-in at a mine. He just needed to use his head and find a way out.

Since shouting wouldn’t do a lick of good unless Jane was standing by Hickok’s grave and she’d probably think it was the alcohol in her system talking to her, he lashed out with both feet. After the first couple of kicks, he felt the end of the coffin start to give. A few more cause it to shatter. Now he was able to push the lid up a little. Dirt rained down on his face and for a moment he had a flashback to when he was younger. He’d lost a lot of friends that day. With a shudder, Ellsworth began to dig and claw his way towards the surface.

By the time he felt air on his face, he was exhausted. Most of his fingers were bleeding or the nails had been torn off, but he’d made it out of the grave. For a few minutes Ellsworth just lay there with his body resting next to a tombstone bearing his name. It was more than a bit unnerving. When he thought he could move without falling over, he made his way into town. The first place he was going to go to was the doctor’s office to find out why the man hadn’t realized he was still alive.

Even though the place was empty, Ellsworth could see blood-covered bandages on the floor, which meant someone else had been hurt. The whole town was a damn powder keg and Hearst was the match. Ellsworth wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover that the real fighting had already started.

He heard someone murmur ‘oh dear god’, which was followed by the sound of various metal objects hitting the floor. Ellsworth turned his head to see Doc Cochran starring at him. The other man was as white a ghost and had his hand clapped over his mouth. “Doc? What’s going on?”

Cochran blinked a few times. Then he ran a shaky hand over his face. “You... One of the Pinkertons shot you in the head, Ellsworth. You were dead.” He took a couple of steps closer before pausing. “You should still be dead. I had bits of your brain on my hand.”

Ellsworth’s jaw dropped and for a moment, he didn’t know what to say. Cochran glanced at Ellsworth’s wounded hands. “Sit your ass down and let me take care of those.”

While he worked, Cochran filled Ellsworth in on what had happened over the past few days. Ellsworth’s biggest concerns were for the safety of Alma and Sofia. Hearst was an evil bastard; he wouldn’t have any problem killing a child. “I need to make sure they’re all right.”

Cochran added a final bandage on Ellsworth’s hand. “And what exactly are you going to say to them, Ellsworth? That you’ve come back from the dead? That little girl saw you in your coffin. She said her goodbyes. You can’t just walk back into their lives like nothing happened.”

“I...” He shook his head. “It might be better if they think I’m still dead.” Sighing, he sat back in the chair. “Have you ever heard of anything like this happening before, Doc?”

Cochran grabbed a flask from a nearby table. He took a couple of swallows before passing it to Ellsworth. “I saw it happen once during the war. We’d worked on this young man for over an hour, thought we had managed to stop the bleeding, but something went wrong and infection set in. Ended up adding his body to the pile outside. The next morning, he came staggering in, covered with the blood of his fellow dead soldiers. The wounds had healed, leaving nothing behind other than a couple of scars. We agreed to never talk about it or people might think we’d gone insane.”

“At least I know I’m not the first.” Ellsworth drained half of the whiskey, shivering as it burned a path towards his stomach. “I should get going before the sun comes up and someone sees me.”

He walked with Cochran to the door. “Thanks for taking care of my hands. Watch over Sofia.”

“I will.”

\---

After accidentally stumbling across a demon nest outside of the Mexican border and nearly dying again in the process, Ellsworth had gone out of his way to find out everything he could about things that weren’t human. To his surprise, he found that people had been fighting against the creatures that lurked in the night since man could walk upright. He tracked down other Hunters in order to learn from experts on the subject.

He’d also been keeping track of the people he cared about. Alma remarried five years after his ‘death’ to a decent fellow back in New York. Sofia shot up like a weed before blossoming into a beautiful young woman. She married a soldier who died in the Great War, but not before he fathered a child.

It was through the great granddaughter of that child that he met John Winchester. Mary was gorgeous, just like Sofia had been. She even had her smile. By that point, Ellsworth was living under the name ‘Bobby Singer’, and as far as Mary knew, he was one of her cousins.

Ellsworth discovered a long time ago that people tended to notice when a man didn’t seem to get any older after a couple dozen years, so he needed to change names and locations ever so often to keep anyone from asking questions or prying into his business.

Mary’s death had wounded him in his soul. He felt terrible for her young children and vowed to do whatever he could to not only help John get revenge, but to assist him with raising the boys. When he was around them, Ellsworth could see Sofia in Sam’s eyes and Dean’s smile. No matter what happened, he would make sure they were okay.


End file.
